Also depending on the person, they may assume you stole the wallet to begin with and press charges. After all you opened the wallet and looked inside. If someone else has taken money out and left it there or just dropped the wallet like an idiot, the owner may react differently. With all the shootings recently, I would be very pressed to not just box it up and mail it to them with their id as the packing slip.

Studies show that violent crimes have been on the decline for years.

The news will always have the most high profile and disturbing stories to tell, it's how they make money.

I once forgot my wallet on a playground while out with my kids. Apparently, someone came across it, found my husbands business card inside and called him. He then agreed to drop it off at our local police station where I could pick it up. Would the police really do much to locate the owner of a wallet or would it just get thrown into a lost and found?

Similar story here. I lost my wallet at the park playing with my kids. Another person found it and saw one of my ID cards inside. She looked up my e-mail address at that company and then sent me an e-mail notifying me that she had found my wallet. I met her at a local store (where she had gone after the park) and got my wallet. What a relief!

I'd probably end up attempting something similar; and if I couldn't locate a way to contact them, I'd drop it off at the police station.

Call the owner and take it to the police. This is based on an assumption that it would be difficult to get to the person's address otherwise I might consider doing a personal delivery. Then let the police and owner sort out the issue of getting the wallet back in to the owner's hands.

"Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory. "
Sun Tzu

Not to bias things but I'm beginning to wonder if the poll results would be different if it was set so you couldn't see who voted for what - so far this flies in the face of the theory that money in a lost wallet is usually a lost cause.

It's hard to say for sure how I'd react. Being a fairly apathetic person I'm not sure I'd make the effort to go far out of my way to return something so it would probably depend on what contact info I could find inside. I'm pretty sure I wouldnt take the money, although I might well have done in the past when I was poorer. Hopefully I'd just drop it at the nearest police station.

I like to think I'd get it back to them but the sad truth is I might just leave it where I found it.

Maybe it just says something about the majority of people on this forum. I always look at it from the point of view that if I had lost something I would hope someone would return it to me in some way either personally or by handing it to the police. Therefore, if someone else has lost something and I'm in a position to help return a lost possession to its owner then I would.

"Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory. "
Sun Tzu

Drop off at the police station, deliver myself and/or call the owner, whichever is least effort. Leave the money. The other way around, if someone did the effort to bring me my wallet back, and the money would still be inside, I might offer them something for the effort.

I found a cell phone in San Fransisco a couple of years ago. I called "home" with it, getting voicemail. The owner then called back and came to pick it up at the beach where we found it. He then gave us a ride around town, since we relied on public transport and had to wait for him to show up, and offered 20 dollar. It was a nice experience.

I've actually been in this situation before (finding a wallet). I was working at a grocery store at the time and found the wallet laying on the foot of one of the displays. I opened the wallet just enough to identify the owner- luckily the first card I saw was a club card for the grocery store I worked at (I pointedly did not want to look at any credit card information if I could help it). I brought the wallet to the customer service desk, informed a manager, and asked for them to make an announcement for the customer to come to the front of the store.

If I had found the wallet on the street, I most likely would bring it to the nearest police station and let them contact the unfortunate individual. Granted, I don't fully trust the police, though I'm not suspicious of them either.